she was my jane doe, my everything.

we flew to arizona.
she was my partner, my lover, wondering what i could be thinking about.
her. a different kind of her
"not now," she thinks,
"what about jane doe?"
i understand, and oblige.

the light stirs
we crash down and fall and almost burn
but live
others were not so lucky.

when we fell, i thought about her.
my jane doe.

this place wasn't a place of god, no matter what it said
the things they did to women
children
babies
sickening.

it reminded me of what they did to her,
my jane doe.

her, my partner, my lover
was gone, but i still found her.
we walked and knew we would lose each other again,
no matter how much it hurt us

the light continued to stir
and when it did
i saw her,
my jane doe,
my everything.

it happened so many years ago
we were children
young souls destined to go to heaven

if we were good.

if we weren't, they would lecture us, punish us.
yours was undeserved,
my jane doe.

i tried to be good. i tried to not say a word.
i knew what sin meant,
but i knew even more of your love for me

love.

the prophet said it was love when he slaughtered the women and children.
the heretic said it was love when she played with me like she did all those years ago
they didn't know. they'll never know

but i knew
when i knew you were there,
my jane doe,
my one and only,
my everything.

the child was you, the one who came back for me,
my jane doe.

it was nobody's fault; not yours, not mine, but his?
there is no doubt.
there is nothing.
but you,
my jane doe.

one last stir of light
helpless,
we would be one again.

now i lie here alone
where artificial light stirs
where voices mumble
and when two people say

they have plans for me.

Don't be fooled by my complacent look
I'll take every word within this book
Give it new meaning, no, it took
Me minutes, or ten hours.
Don't be fooled by my resolve to do
What's not for me, what comes from you,
My mind has still not gone all through
And found reason in these flowers.
For I know I'm of an independent mind
And I know that if the mind is not aligned
With yours, I'll steer my own track down this crooked lane
Where all howl with their might and main
On how they're sitting in the rain
Because investigation, what's that?
Curiosity may have killed the cat,
But don't take food brought just like that
Not knowing what's in the caveat
May land you in the black hat.
And when will you know if you will be pulled out?
And when will you know, if you know, what format?
But, don't be fooled, I won't be sensible,
Sweet, right or comprehensible,
A position indefensible,
Yet infinitely more fun.
Don't be fooled, my reason's lock and key,
There's stumbles still in stock for me,
And alas, many more of these,
Will be some already done.
But I know I'm of an independent mind
And I know that if the mind is not aligned...

I stick my fingers in my throat
and throw up a basket of swallowed suns;
under it, my tongue is parched and pinned in place
like a dried house moth on an entomologist’s hand
that nurses it back to life

and demands devotion in return,
a poem in return.

But I have purged the feeling being out of me
like a cold, cold man now averse to the ways of his younger lover
who is alive for all of it — the lust and the starving kisses
and the quiet deaths in the morning only to haunt at night.

I leave letters for my bitten nails without meaning a single word,
and go to lie with the superficiality, the hypocrisy nesting under my tongue.

I have started writing poems again — see where they take me this time
and find myself here, once more
where a fool unpacks her baggage and out I come rolling
like a dead body with a foaming mouth, a brown moth burning under the sun,
a leech that scurries under salt and needles,
slowly eroding like sanity.

She thinks, therefore, she is, they say,
but at what cost? She looks on and pens this poem
with a tiny smile on her lips.

I melt with the way you look at me
Rejoicing in the sunlight that is your attention
I feel as if I could float
Until a meteorite hits
The reminder that you don't feel the same
The reminder that I'm not what you want
I hate that I feel this way for you
Because no matter how I admit it
I feel so deeply
So much more deeply than an average being
Because my emotions are intense
This feeling flows in tidal waves
Crashing against me in a pattern of warm and freezing
Warm being the moments I feel like a star in your constellation
The freezing being the reminder that you're a galaxy away
My heart stammers consistently
Whether skipping a beat at the positive attention
Or stuttering at the depression at every turn
You do not want me
As I want you
And I tell myself that's okay
But it truly hurts

Place To Be
The best place to be right now
Is not in Europe over Russia's issues
A ******* nation with 7,500 nukes
Of different types and classes
As set ready to use on Putin's order
Ukraine started it after NATO grew
Right up to Russia's borders
Now they want to turn back the clock
1997 when Russia wasn't threatened
This isn't possible so they all
Sleepwalk to Armageddon
This year or the next
It's coming soon...